Rusk Interactive Editor

TUI multi-line editor for task text

• Overview
• Launching
• Visual layout
• Key bindings
  • Save, cancel, help
  • Navigation
  • Selection
  • Editing
  • Clipboard and undo
  • Mouse
• Dirty-state confirmation
• Draft autosave and recovery
• Task date header
• Output after editing

Overview

rusk edit <id> opens the interactive multi-line editor with the task's current text preloaded. The editor renders inside an alternate screen and exposes selection, clipboard, undo/redo, word navigation, and crash-safe autosave.

Launching

# Add a new task: full-screen editor, empty buffer (or restore a `new-task` draft).
rusk add

# Add with a due date on the first line pre-filled (same token rules as in `rusk add -d …`).
rusk add -d 2w

# Edit task text and due date (first line) interactively.
rusk edit 1

# Edit several tasks in one session (the editor opens once per id).
rusk edit 1,2,3

Visual layout

31-12-2025 first line of the task text 
second line of the task text
third line …

                              ^S save · ^G help · Esc cancel    ●

• Top rows: the editable text, soft-wrapped to fit the terminal width.
• If the first line starts with a valid due-date token, it is shown in color (green for today or later, red if before today); other rows use equivalent-width indent so cursor math stays accurate.
• Footer (last row): hotkey hint that adapts to the terminal width.
• Arrows ↑ / ↓ at the bottom-left appear when the buffer scrolls.
• Status glyph at the bottom-right: ● (dirty) / ○ (saved).

Key bindings

Save, cancel, help

Key	Action
Ctrl+S	Save and exit. Deletes the autosave draft.
Esc	Cancel / skip task. Prompts when the buffer is dirty.
Ctrl+G or F1	Show the in-editor help overlay.
Ctrl+C	Copy selection if any; otherwise abort the program.

Navigation

Key	Action
← / →	Move by character.
Ctrl+← / Ctrl+→	Jump by word.
↑ / ↓	Move between visual (soft-wrapped) rows.
Ctrl+↑ / Ctrl+↓	Move by 5 visual rows.
Home / End	Smart Home (first non-space, then col 0) / end of line.
Ctrl+Home / Ctrl+End	Buffer start / end.
PageUp / PageDown	Scroll one page.
Ctrl+PageUp / Ctrl+PageDown	Buffer start / end.

Selection

Key	Action
Shift+← / Shift+→	Extend selection by character.
Shift+Ctrl+← / Shift+Ctrl+→	Extend selection by word.
Shift+↑ / Shift+↓	Extend selection vertically.
Shift+Home / Shift+End	Extend to line start / end.
Shift+Ctrl+Home / Shift+Ctrl+End	Extend to buffer start / end.
Ctrl+A	Select the whole buffer.

Editing

Key	Action
Enter	Insert newline (splits line at cursor; replaces selection).
Tab	Insert four spaces (replaces selection).
Ctrl+R	Restore the original task text (prefill).
Backspace	Delete left character / selection.
Delete	Delete right character / selection.
Ctrl+W, Ctrl+Backspace	Delete word to the left.
Ctrl+Delete	Delete word to the right.
Ctrl+K	Kill from cursor to end of line (or join with next line at EOL).
Ctrl+Shift+K	Delete the whole current line.
Ctrl+U	Kill from beginning of line to cursor.

Clipboard and undo

Key	Action
Ctrl+C	Copy selection to the system clipboard.
Ctrl+X	Cut selection to the system clipboard.
Ctrl+V	Paste from the system clipboard.
Ctrl+Z	Undo (consecutive single-char inserts collapse into one step).
Ctrl+Y	Redo.

The editor uses arboard for the system clipboard with a process-local fallback when clipboard access is unavailable (e.g. headless terminals).

Mouse

Gesture	Action
Left click	Move cursor; start selection.
Left drag	Extend selection.
Double-click	Select word under cursor.
Triple-click	Select the whole line.
Shift + click	Extend existing selection to the click point.
Middle click	Paste from the system clipboard at the click point.
Scroll wheel	Scroll the view (cursor follows by 3 visual rows).

Dirty-state confirmation

Pressing Esc while the buffer differs from the original text (dirty state, signalled by ●) shows an overlay Discard changes? [y/N]. Answering y discards changes, clears the autosave draft, and cancels the edit. Any other key returns to the editor.

Draft autosave and recovery

• The editor writes its buffer to $RUSK_DB/editor.draft every ~3 seconds while there are unsaved changes. $RUSK_DB falls back to ./.rusk/ when not set (see the main README).

• The draft payload is JSON with the task key, timestamp, and text:

  { "key": "task-3", "text": "...", "timestamp": "2026-04-21T10:20:30+00:00" }
  

• On a clean save (Ctrl+S) or confirmed discard (Esc → y) the draft file is deleted.

• For new tasks from rusk add (no text on the command line), the draft key is new-task and recovery is offered the same way.

• When the editor starts and finds a draft whose key matches the task being edited, it prompts:

  Restore unsaved draft for task 3 ? [y/N]:
  

  Answering y pre-loads the draft instead of the stored text. Any other answer deletes the draft and continues with the stored text.

• A crash, Ctrl+C, or a terminal kill leaves the draft file in place so the next rusk edit <id> can offer recovery.

Task date header

The due date (if any) is only the first whitespace-delimited token at the very start of the first line. It may be an absolute date (DD-MM-YYYY, slashes or dots or short year ok), a relative offset from today (2d, 2w, 10d5w, 1m3q, …), or a relative offset from this task's current due date using a leading + (+2w, +10d5w, …; if the task had no due date yet, + uses today, same as rusk add -d). Use _ as the only date token to clear the deadline. A recognized token is highlighted in color on that line (green for today or later, red if before today); text that does not parse as a date is not colored. The following text are the body.

rusk edit <id> -d <date> (with a value; same relative rules as this first-line token, including leading +) sets the date without opening the TUI. Bare -d / --date (no value) is not supported; use the TUI to edit the first line. The interactive buffer is still the authoritative place for a due date: whatever appears as the first token on the first line (or absent). For rusk add with no text, leading + on a relative form still uses today (there is no existing task due date yet), same as rusk add -d. Full syntax, including relative forms, is in the in-editor help (Ctrl+G / F1).

Output after editing

The editor is intentionally quiet on exit: no task body is echoed back to the terminal. Only the status line and the task id are printed:

Edited task: 3
Task unchanged: 4
Skipped task: 5